Star Citizen has been around about as long as the Oculus Rift has, and the crowd-funded massively multiplayer online (MMO) game once even supported VR in an early development build. But, as the years have gone on, VR support has become an increasingly distant subject for the high-profile project. But it sounds like it’s still very much on the way.
Chris Roberts, Game Director at developer Cloud Imperium Games, recently confirmed as much in a video interview (starting around the 27:00 mark, pointed out to us by UploadVR reader Kraig). He explained that much of the game was still being built with VR in mind but, because so much of the game was still being envisioned and optimized, it made more sense to actually implement headset support later down the line.
“So our biggest hold back on VR really is we’re still doing so much base-level refactoring and the engine, the renderer, we’ll be starting on Vulcan, DX12 refactor as well and we’re doing so much optimization that we feel like we’ve got to get that done first and get the base level engine stuff more finished, not constantly working and refactoring, and then we’ll put VR [in],” Roberts said.
“Because we actually had VR support quite a while ago but, of course, as we change stuff it breaks and then, your engine team, are they going to go and fix the VR stuff or that new procedural planet system that everyone can experience. So that’s what’s always happened in those situations but once all that stablizes of course, yes, we’re going to go and put that support in .”
He continued, confirming features like the ability to disconnect your look from your aim inside VR. While it’s encouraging to hear that VR support is still very much on the table, it doesn’t sound like we can expect it to pop up any time soon; Star Citizen is a massive project that’s been in the works for about seven years and we have no idea when the team will be happy with the optimizations its made, especially considering all the extra stresses VR brings about.
